Valletta’s bid to close the gap with the Premier League front-runners hit a snag as the Citizens were held by Sta Lucia at the Hibs Stadium.

It looked as though Valletta were on their way to prevail in a low-key encounter when they led through an Emlit Sala first-half goal.

However, the Saints failed to throw in the towel and inspired by the continuous running of their forward trio of Kevin Ante Rosero, Alan da Silva Souza and Rei Tachikawa they piled up the pressure on the Valletta defence.

Their efforts were rewarded two minutes from time when Ante Rosero headed home the equalizer to earn a merited point for his team.

Valletta coach Jesmond Zerafa was again without several key players as Jonathan Caruana, Mihailo Jovanovic and Kyrian Nwoko failed to recover from injury with the Citizens forced to field their make-shift defensive partnership of Triston Caruana and Eslit Sala while Miguel Alba started on the right flankin support of lone striker Mario Fontanella.

Santa Lucia, on the other hand, had no selection problems as coach Oliver Spiteri fielded his strongest starting XI.

 

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